The Eleventh Hour
Kathy and Michelle found themselves in a place where they were completing tasks at the eleventh hour before a deadline last week, and they pondered how they get themselves into these situations. They also talk about the importance and power of saying “no” to protect their sanity. Kathy is looking forward to spending some time in a sensory deprivation tank for her birthday, and Michelle is looking forward to an interview where she’ll be profiled as one of the top 4 finalists recognized for her contributions as a female businesswoman in the Rochester area.
Episode Transcript
Speaker 0 00:00:00 Start your week smiling with your friends, Kathy’s aunt and Michelle Ette. It’s time to get ready for some weekly motivation with WP Motivate
Speaker 2 00:00:13 . Hi, Kathy . Hi Michelle. How you doing?
Speaker 1 00:00:17 I’m good. I just love that sometimes like we have these long conversations before we even start. And I’m still laughing before as we get recording because I just, I just love our conversation so much and obviously like we ramble and we, you know, mumble, not mumble, but we ramble a little bit on and stuff here in the podcast, but it’s nothing compared to the stuff that goes before and afterwards that we don’t dare publish, um, for the rest of the world to hear. Because some of it’s the inner workings of our brain and honestly, not everybody needs to be privy to that. So
Speaker 2 00:00:44 yeah, that’s what therapy’s for. But this is kinda like June junior therapy, but with a, with a very positive twist. Always
Speaker 1 00:00:53 . Absolutely. Absolutely. I love that. Um, you know, we can vent to each other about whatever’s going on in our life, but uh, it’s more in a supportive way and, and, Hey, have you thought about it this way? And Oh yeah, I know exactly what you mean. And yeah. And, uh, why don’t you go take a nap? You know, things like that.
Speaker 2 00:01:08 , naps always
Speaker 1 00:01:11 Naps. Nap. Take a nap.
Speaker 2 00:01:12 That’s like your tweet today. Was it, was it today that you posted that? About that
Speaker 1 00:01:16 Nap?
Speaker 2 00:01:19 There’s,
Speaker 1 00:01:19 There are two, two wolves inside of me. One once a nap. The other has my mom . Which one will you feed?
Speaker 2 00:01:27 Alia? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m gonna go for the nap one this afternoon.
Speaker 1 00:01:32 . Oh my gosh, it’s me too. It been,
Speaker 2 00:01:33 It’s been a long week.
Speaker 1 00:01:35 I’m thinking about buying a new couch cuz I spend so much time like napping on mine that it’s a little too boring, if you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 00:01:42 , yeah.
Speaker 1 00:01:45 Either that or just like fluff the cushions a little bit. But, uh, yeah, so I, I actually have done a little bit, just a, just surface Googling about the 11th hour. I used to call myself like an 11th hour expert kind of thing. Like if it wasn’t for the 11th hour, I never get anything done. You know, like people laugh about that. I seriously sometimes look at the clock and figure out how much time do I have before I, it’s actually crunch time and I won’t be able to do something on time. So, for example,
Speaker 1 00:02:23 I spoke at a Word camp, oh my gosh, five years ago maybe. And I knew what I wanted to talk about, but I’d never given this talk before, therefore I didn’t have slides for it or anything like that. And, uh, and it was out of town. So I drove, I don’t know, three hours to get there. Friday night we had the, it was a one day camp. Friday night we had the speaker sponsored dinner. So that went to like, I don’t know, nine after that I went back to my room and I was like, eh, I don’t feel like doing my slides yet. So
Speaker 2 00:02:55 I
Speaker 1 00:02:55 Thought I was giving my talk. I think like at one or two in the afternoon, I spent the morning in what? The green room. If y’all don’t know, usually there’s a green room at Word camps. I know Kathy’s well acquainted as I am, where the speakers can go dump their stuff. They don’t have to worry. Somebody’s, you know, kind of paying attention to it. You can sit in there and work on stuff. You can check email. There’s usually cookies at, or the very least water. You know, there’s a place where we can just kind of commune, get ready, put your, you know, whatever, green room, green room stuff. So there I sat for like three hours in the morning talking to every single speaker that came through there. As I was putting together my slides, I finished my slides like an hour before I had to go give the talk.
Speaker 1 00:03:36 And it was one of the best talks I’ve ever given. Now, was it the best talk I’ve ever given because I knew my stuff? Or was it the best talk I’ve ever given? Cause I waited till the last minute, didn’t like obsess about it. I mean, I’m gonna tell you that I feel . Like I have to justify the 11th hours because I do it so much. But it was, and it’s actually on WordPress tv, I can share the link. It was about how to, um, empower your clients to use their websites without letting them break their websites basically, you know, and that kind of thing. And I cr I created the best meme. It was, um, Bob Ross saying, you know, uh, that there are no, uh, there are no customer or client mistakes, just happy little opportunities to make money off your clients. Like that kinda thing. Like, oh, you messed it up. Well let’s, you know, $300 an hour to fix it or whatever. But, um, I’ll show the link out later if you want. But yeah, so I, um, I might have done that today. So I was working on slides this morning. You and I, as we talked about last week, you and I both spoke at the Groundhog Day event. Um, I’m the, I’m the sunny to your Share .
Speaker 2 00:04:45 Yes, yes. That clock flipped to 6:00 AM and it played sunny and share.
Speaker 1 00:04:52 I got you Babe . That’s right. So yeah. So I, um, I put the slideshow together this morning. I never, I know you said you were practicing. I have never once practiced a, a talk in my entire life, really. I just, I get up there and I talk with whatever’s in my head about the slides I put together. Um, smart, I don’t know, tends to work for me. I got a lot of positive feedback. So it worked pretty well today, I think. But, um,
Speaker 2 00:05:19 Yes. Yeah, I watched You did very well. You did very well. Yeah, I did mine la Well, I decided at the very last minute now I’ve always been a Google Docs or a Google Slides kind of girl mm-hmm. . And at the last minute, last night, I converted everything over to Canva. And so it was a completely new present my deal. And I’m doing it live, let, like I’m really Yeah. Living life on the edge. And of course, as I was, you know, I couldn’t go for it’s ice storm here. And so I, I’m cranky this week cause I haven’t been able to do like my dog walks and I’m just Yeah. Cranky. Anyway, I’m just cranky anyway, but, uh, as I’m puttering about the house, I’m like, oh, I need to talk about this. So I slid the, you know, extra slide in there and at the last minute and I am really good at, okay, that’s 40 minutes right there. And then I get in there and it’s just like, oh,
Speaker 1 00:06:14 I have to talk for
Speaker 2 00:06:16 A . I know. And I, at about 30 minutes in, I’m like, I’m almost done. What am I gonna do for another 30 minutes? So it was like, da dun dun , like, what am I do? I’m dancing. Yeah. And Maestro Stevens had gone right before, and he was just like, Anne, and he had like sound effects and everything.
Speaker 1 00:06:39 Sound effects, his sound effects. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2 00:06:41 Crazy. He was so good, so animated. And here I am with just, it’s just me. And I love, like, when I do talks and it’s like, then the, the CE comes in and asks a few questions and adds a little color and you got somebody to talk to. But for this, you were just like, you know, 30 minutes of just me some chats.
Speaker 1 00:07:04 , I finished, I finished at 40 minutes and then I was like, there’s no mc who’s gonna ask me questions. So I, I like stopped sharing my screen and I went to the chat and I just scrolled down and answered questions that were in there. Yeah. And I was like, was like, and I was like, oh, thank you for the kin, the nice comments. Oh, thank you for the, so thank you for the comments. And then I found some questions and then I just kind of winged it and that at 50 minutes I was like, well, I guess we’re done here. My folks have a great rest of your day. And I was like, that’s it, it’s over.
Speaker 2 00:07:31 Oh, when I saw you do that, I was just like, oh, I should have done that. I just like kept talking about, you know, yeah. The ice.
Speaker 1 00:07:38 Well, here’s the thing. We didn’t get paid for doing this today, so
Speaker 2 00:07:41 Yeah.
Speaker 1 00:07:42 I wasn’t gonna like, stretch it anymore than I had to when there was nobody else on screen. Right. So yeah, I literally had said everything I wanted to say ,
Speaker 2 00:07:51 So Yeah, it was, well, I mean, I never do a talk because we’re doing talks like this. Yeah. I never, never pitch a talk about something that I, oh, I have to really work hard at determining what it is. I’m gonna say, just, I’m gonna pitch something I already know that I think is, uh, you know, dovetails with what that audience mm-hmm. might want to hear about. So 11th hour. Yeah. I, I used to do speech in college, so this is kind of like, that’s, that was kind of my deal.
Speaker 1 00:08:18 Yeah. I remember doing, I took a speech class in college too, and um, the, my speech teacher, she was the wicked witch of the west. She did not like me. I don’t know why. It was a small Christian college and she just had it out for me the entire four years I was there. And then I worked there for four years and she still was rude to me. Like she just didn’t like me for some reason, which is fine. Like I said on Twitter a few weeks ago, I am not everybody’s cup of tea and I’m okay with that. But it’s, it’s, it’s weird though when somebody who doesn’t even know you just like has it out for you. I had to write a paper and I called it, it, um, uh, what I call it, uh, Jill of all trades, mistress of none because, you know, I’m not a a man, so it wasn’t jack of all trades and the , like, I got like a C minus on the paper. The only positive quote was, I like the title, may I quote you on that, ? I was like, yeah, go for it. Whatever.
Speaker 2 00:09:13 Geez, . Oh, that’s funny.
Speaker 1 00:09:16 Yeah. And here I do, I talk for a living now for the most part. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. So, you know, Mrs. Lvra Berry go take a long walk off a short beer , I don’t care if you like me or not. I, I, I like me. And that’s okay. ,
Speaker 2 00:09:32 That’s all that matters really. In the end. You’re the only person you have to spend your whole life with, so you better make that person happy. Right. Otherwise
Speaker 1 00:09:41 . Exactly. That’s the point.
Speaker 2 00:09:43 Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1 00:09:44 , that’s why self-talk is so important, right. So the self-talk that’s in our heads all the time. Yes, man, it’s so easy to have negative play through your head all the time, but you hear that voice, nobody else hears that voice and you can’t shut it off. So you better have a talk with that bitch and make her happy. . I think that’s, otherwise you just have to listen to a complaint all the time.
Speaker 2 00:10:05 Yeah, yeah. Seriously. Yeah. My, my inner my inner bitch is mad at me because I keep saying yes to projects that I really shouldn’t say yes. Like, well this talk, I think really fit was really good for, for cadence. And so I made time for this and didn’t like, spend a ton of time on it so it made sense. But I keep saying yes to things that like, are not things that I know, things I know I can’t do, which I’ve proven to myself is a lot. Yes. But not the things I want to do. So then I get stuck doing all the things I can do and the things I want to do and want to get done. Don’t get the time.
Speaker 1 00:10:42 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:10:42 And I don’t know what I’m doing to myself, but my, my inner bitch is mad at me for it, and a couple other people too. I’m like, why didn’t you keep saying yes to Stop, stop. It’s saying no and just like really focus and Yeah,
Speaker 1 00:10:56 I agree. I agree. As a matter of fact, um, one of my friends reached out to me yesterday. I have a vacation club, which is similar to a timeshare in Punana in the Dominican Republic. And she reached out yesterday. She’s, she co-owns it with me. She’s like, oh, I, she’s like, oh, we just got the bill for our annual maintenance. And I said, oh, I paid it this morning. She’s like, oh, I’ll PayPal you my half. She goes, let’s schedule a vacation. Like, we haven’t done one since before the pandemic. And I was like, this is not a time to say no . This isn’t time to say yes. So I’m gonna schedule a vacation in the Dominican Republic. And Oh, I’m looking forward to that. Some downtime.
Speaker 2 00:11:35 Good for you. I’m so happy for you that, thank you. Definitely, definitely. Well earned. You’ve got a lot of travel coming up in the next few months, huh? You’re going to Asia? I
Speaker 1 00:11:45 Really do. I am going to, Asia Passport is supposed to be here any day, so I should be able to make it on time for Work Camp Asia. It, I, I don’t think very many people knew that was hanging in the balance like that, but I was checking every single day. And today it’s finally showing as approved and, and the queue to be printed and, and mailed out. Whew. Yes. Um, yeah, so going to Bangkok and then, um, a couple other things coming up. Things that aren’t public yet, so I can’t really share, but, uh, other word camps and other travel that I’m super excited about.
Speaker 2 00:12:16 Excellent. Oh, busy. Busy. What
Speaker 1 00:12:17 About you? It’s almost like you have, you haven’t traveled in a while. You’re gonna try to figure out a way to do that?
Speaker 2 00:12:23 Yeah, I have to. There’s one thing that I really, really want to do and I need to do mm-hmm. . And so the logistics must begin of, am I gonna make sure someone’s here for Mark and making sure he’s okay. And then now I have two dogs I’ve got to deal with, but the little one, maybe I’ll bring ’em.
Speaker 1 00:12:45 Oh, why not Cute. Do you know, like if, if the second in command at Automatic can bring her Great Dane with her everywhere.
Speaker 2 00:12:53 Oh wow.
Speaker 1 00:12:53 You can, you can bring a tiny little puppy .
Speaker 2 00:12:57 Yeah, yeah. Well I might bring my daughter with me for Oh, nice travel thing. So Yeah. Cuz she hasn’t been able to travel at all either, because Yeah. Who’s she gonna go with? Yeah. One parent is, is unable to really do anything and the other one is taking care of that. So say
Speaker 1 00:13:15 I, I almost interrupted to say calling you Vicky
Speaker 2 00:13:17 . Oh my gosh. Oh, I, I decided last night that if I ever write a memoir, the title’s going to be my name isn’t Vicky .
Speaker 1 00:13:30 It’s the perfect title and you should write it. I would read it. I will buy a copy. You better autograph it for me and don’t sign it. Vicky
Speaker 2 00:13:37 scary thing is like, if he wants something right now, he’ll start saying Vicky, but if I go in there and I say, what’s my name? It’s Kathy, but it’s like, why are you calling for Vicky? Because it just like drives me nuts. . And he doesn’t know. It’s just like, yeah, those wires are just Yeah. When he wants something or needs something, it’s Vicky. But yeah, I’m not, that’s,
Speaker 1 00:13:58 That’s not, that’s not the same as when my husband used to call me his first wife’s name by accident
Speaker 2 00:14:03 . Oh no.
Speaker 1 00:14:04 Every once in a while I was Wendy and he’d get the evil eye like, that is not my name. . Gosh. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:14:12 Oh crazy. He, he, he actually told cuz he was married before I was married before. And um, he actually said something like about how he missed his first wife, who’s now deceased, but he said something about missing her and how he really like loved her and was attracted to her. And I’m like, oh, bless your heart. It’s a good thing you’ve already had a stroke. . Otherwise I didn’t say it that mean, but it was, what the fuck? I mean, I blame it all on the stroke that it’s just like crazy things come out of his mouth all the time anyway, so there’s another crazy thing, you know, so it’s just, yeah.
Speaker 1 00:14:50 I actually had to ex explain to somebody, , do you wanna what?
Speaker 2 00:14:56 That’s gonna be the, the whole book that’s just gonna be . My name isn’t Vicky and it’s just gonna be all crazy.
Speaker 1 00:15:01 And this is why, and this is why. Yes. I actually, I had to explain to somebody recently, I don’t remember who I was talking to, but I explained to somebody recently that Bless your heart actually means quite the opposite.
Speaker 3 00:15:14
Speaker 1 00:15:15 Like, oh, you’re such a dumb ass
Speaker 3 00:15:18 .
Speaker 2 00:15:20 Exactly. I didn’t realize that until I lived in the south and heard it used a couple of times and I’m like, wait, wait. She doesn’t mean that. Does she?
Speaker 3 00:15:28 I
Speaker 1 00:15:29 Think, I think you watched you steel magnolias one time when you’re like, oh, oh
Speaker 3 00:15:34 .
Speaker 1 00:15:37 It’s all clear. It’s all clear now.
Speaker 3 00:15:39 . Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:15:40 Oh my goodness. Yeah, there are a lot of like, really, really subtle things about being in the South that you just, like, you have to just live here to really get exposed to ’em. Cuz it’s not something that you can never read anywhere. It’s, it’s a,
Speaker 1 00:15:54 My interesting, my dad’s, my dad’s second wife was from Kentucky, which a lot of people don’t say is like, yeah, south, south, but it’s south enough. Right. And she had some of the funniest like Waffle House quis. Well yeah, there are Waffle House. There’s no Waffle House in New York. So we are definitely not the south. But um, we were all in Hawaii when I was, I was a teenager and we took a vacation in Hawaii and I was walking, uh, ahead with my brothers and my stepmom and my dad were behind and . She said something like, well, if I had a swing like that, I’d put it on my front
Speaker 3 00:16:22 Porch like, like what? Oh
Speaker 2 00:16:28 My gosh. That’s hilarious.
Speaker 1 00:16:30 And then she had this thing where somebody would fly by you on the, on the, on the road. She’d be like, oh, it’s okay. They’re just gonna go ahead and shake the bushes for bears. And I was like, what does that even mean? She was like, well, they’ll get the police out after them and not us. And I was like, oh, okay.
Speaker 3 00:16:45 Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 00:16:46 And you’d have the shivers and she go, it’s so funny. Did a snake run across your grave? And I was like, I don’t, I don’t understand what are you saying? But yeah, I learned, I learned how to speak Gloria
Speaker 3 00:16:59 . Yeah. All good .
Speaker 1 00:17:02 That is so good. Funny. It’s all good. Oh my gosh. Uh, so if you had to say one thing you’re looking forward to in the next week that you’re not gonna miss out on, that you’re not gonna say no to, cuz you’re looking forward to it that much, what would that be? Any ideas?
Speaker 2 00:17:19 You know, my birthday’s coming up and I need to
Speaker 1 00:17:22 Do
Speaker 2 00:17:22 Something that I promised myself I was gonna do. And that is to go to a sensory drop probation tank where no phones, nobody can call me Vicky in, in there . Nobody needs anything from me. There’s no emails that need to go out or no Twitter messages to reply to or YouTube comments to reply to. Nothing. Yeah. Just me warm salt water and whatever.
Speaker 1 00:17:48 Have you done that before?
Speaker 2 00:17:50 Yes. I used to do it in Arizona all the time, like once a month. Oh, nice. It was my, it was my thing. I would go and the sensory deprivation tank was next to, um, this fish restaurant the husband liked. And so I’d go Drive home with the smelly fish that he liked. Um, and it was my thing. It was just like I was the fish and then I went, go get some fish. And it was just, it was so nice and it was peaceful and it was really kind of like a forced reset mm-hmm. so that I could just like have my downtime and not, you know, there was stresses and and such then, so yeah, lots of people need and stuff for me and everything. It hasn’t really changed, but I, uh,
Speaker 1 00:18:33 I think you should find a flow look.
Speaker 2 00:18:35 So
Speaker 1 00:18:35 That’s one thing. Should do it again. Absolutely. You should do it. Yeah. Um, I did that once
Speaker 2 00:18:39 Myself. I would
Speaker 1 00:18:40 Do that once years ago and I can, I can agree with you. It was absolutely like good for the soul. Absolutely good for the soul. It
Speaker 2 00:18:48 Really is. I learned about it from a, uh, from actors that were doing it. They’d go in and rehearse their lines because you can’t have your papers and you can’t have any distractions. You’re in there, you have to rehearse your lines. And I’m like, Ooh, that sounds fun. I don’t have lines. Can I just go do it anyway? And I’m like, oh my gosh, this is like the best meditation ever. So yeah. So I’m, I’m gonna do that for my birthday, which is coming up in a week or so, so Oh good. How about you? What do you got coming up?
Speaker 1 00:19:14 Well, I don’t know if I if I’ve said this publicly or not, I know that I’ve told you, but I am one of four finalists for the Rochester Remarkable Woman of the Year. And so next Thursday a film crew is coming out to the office to film me at work. Um, they’re gonna film me doing the underrepresented tech podcast with Ally Neman. Oh wow. And they’re gonna talk to Jeff, uh, Bettencourt from the office from Give w p who, uh, nominated me and just kind of interview me and see what I do at work. And then on the following Saturday, which is the 11th, which is actually my dad’s birthday, I am doing, um, a day of family photography. I donate time, I donate a day every year just to local the Buy Nothing, sell Nothing group, because those are people who are looking to save some money, A lot of them have families and, uh, do a day of family photography.
Speaker 1 00:20:02 I’ve got people set up like every half hour, um, eight different families to come in because I don’t always do it like right in February. But the, um, W r s CTV that does this, um, this award wanted to see me doing the photography for these families. And so I set up a day and eight families jumped right into it. And I’m doing a full day of photography. So I’m excited about both of those things. It’s exciting to kind of be in the spotlight a little bit and especially because I, I do a lot that I think benefits other people. And so to be able to show how and to showcase like the Underrepresented Tech podcast to me is super exciting stuff like that. So Yeah. Yeah. So I’m looking
Speaker 2 00:20:42 Forward to that. Amazing. That’s so great. Thank you. You better get some pictures and stuff and post
Speaker 1 00:20:46 Them on social. Can’t we just see it? Oh yeah, absolutely. That’ll be a lot of fun. For sure. And then they’re gonna run that on the news in the month of March, which is Women’s History Month. So exciting stuff. Amazing. Thanks. Yeah. So great. Excited. Congratulations. I’m so proud of you and happy birthday to you, so very exciting. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Let us know what you’re doing this week. Hit us up on socials. Um, we ask that every time. Nobody’s taken us up on it yet, so if you listen this far, I don’t care what it is, you have to say it, you’re gonna win something. If you’ve listened this far and you tweeted us Yes. About something exciting, Kathy and I are gonna come up with some kind of prize. I don’t care if it’s a gift card to Starbucks or one of my books, but we’re, there’s gonna be a prize and so you’re gonna get something just to show that you hung in till the end. So , thank you. Sounds good. Thank you, Kathy. I got some ideas. All good. Me too. Awesome. All right, everybody, have a great week, Kathy. Thank you for everything and we’ll see you everybody later. Bye bye. This has been WP Motivate with Kathy’s aunt and Michelle Fette. To learn more or to sponsor us, go to wp motivate.com.